UGA lab tech charged in sexual assault

Wednesday

Jul 31, 2013 at 4:41 PM

A University of Georgia lab technician was booked on Tuesday into the Clarke County Jail on charges he sexually assaulted a woman two weeks ago in north Athens.

Athens-Clarke police said that on July 17 Harold Beal Garner accosted a 23-year-old woman at a business on Barber Street, where he touched her inappropriately, exposed himself and blocked her from getting to her car.

Garner was gone when officers arrived to take a report of the woman's complaint, but police subsequently obtained warrants charging him with sexual battery and public indecency - both misdemeanors - and felony false imprisonment.

Police released few details of the alleged offenses.

Among other things, police would not identify the business where the incident allegedly occurred or specify what Garner did to support the sexual battery charge.

Under Georgia law, someone commits that offense when they "intentionally makes physical contact with the intimate parts of the body of another person without the consent of that person."

Police said the alleged victim and Garner were "familiar with each other," but would not say more.

Garner was listed in the police incident report as a UGA employee.

In the school's directory, he is said to be an administrative assistant in the Department of Cellular Biology and he calls himself a lab tech on his LinkedIn profile.

Garner, 24, of Barrow Street, was being held without bail late Wednesday afternoon.